Faculty/Director of SJCO Online & Director of Prescott College Tucson

Dr. Fernández’s areas of teaching and research include social justice education, Ethnic Studies and teacher education. As a former high school English teacher in Tucson, she is devoted to preparing activist teachers who are both compassionate and critical and put their students’ lives at the center of their curriculum. Dr. Fernández is locally and nationally involved in community and professional organizations that focus on Latinx rights, social justice activism, critical pedagogy and transformative teacher education. Her publications include works in Multicultural Education, Journal of Praxis in Multicultural Education, Journal of Association of Mexican American Educators and Rethinking Schools among others.

Dr. Fernández is currently the Director of Prescott College, Tucson, and the Director of the online graduate program in Social Justice and Community Organizing. She is the co-founder and Director of the Xicanx Institute for Teaching & Organizing (www.xicanoinstitute.org), an urban education consulting collective, and the co-founder of La Tierra Community School (www.latierracommunityschool.org), a K-8 Expeditionary Learning school in Prescott. Dr. Fernández is based in Tucson, AZ.

Publications

Fernández, A. (2016). Resistance and Resilience in Tucson: The Xican@ Institute for Teaching and Organizing (XITO) as a Form of Resistance and Liberation. " White" Washing American Education [2 Volumes]: The New Culture Wars in Ethnic Studies, 239.

Fernández, A. & Hammer, Z. (2013). Red Scare in the Red State: The Attack on Mexican-American Studies in Arizona and Opportunities for Building National Solidarity. Journal of the Association of Mexican American Educators. 6(1).

Fernández, A. (2011). "Whitening Arizona: Teacher Education In a Time of War Against Our Students" (Winter 2010-2011). Rethinking Schools.